Help! Need to uninstall Mandrake

[Force Flow]

The way I installed it, it seems to be messing with my other O/S's and my other O/S's seem to be messing with Mandrake, so I can't get the GUI interface.

How do I go about uninstalling it? I only seem to be able to see Mandrake 9.1's files though a prog called "explore2fs". Can I use that to uninstall Mandrake?

Here's my HDD setup:

HDD0 - C (win98SE), D(win2000 pro), E (files, progs & data)
HDD1 - F (winXP Pro), G (empty), H (empty)

All partitions are FAT32. The C drive is the only primary partition. The rest of my system specs are in my sig.

Should I try reformatting my empty partitions?

[jglen490]

HDD0 - C (win98SE), D(win2000 pro), E (files, progs & data) HDD1 - F (winXP Pro), G (empty), H (empty) All partitions are FAT32.

You have two hard drives and all are formatted as FAT32, correct? Where in this scheme did you install Mandrake and what filesystem(s) did you tell it to use? Which boot manager are you using (i.e., Grub, Lilo, ntldr, boot floppy) and where did you install its boot code?

All of these are very important questions so that we can help you get your system back to its pre-Linux configuration -- although I really don't know why you would want to remove the world's greatest OS !!

[Force Flow]

Thanks for replying, jglen290

Yes. Everything is FAT32.

As for boot manager, I have no idea. I just know it was GUI.

btw, I'm just going to reformat the drive it's on, since XP got corrupted too. I'm going try installing Mandrake on a test system I slapped together from parts. Then, once I get the installation procedure down, I'll put it on my regular system.

[bailey]

now that is a good idea, think I will also do that too, only thing is can I use my old ati aiw radeion 32 ddr or di I have to buy another vid card to use mandrake .

[jglen490]

Yes. Everything is FAT32.

I guess it's O.K. to run Linux from within a FAT32 partition, but it's normally much happier running inside its own Linux native filesystems (ext2, ext3, ReiserFS, XFS, etc) and that may explain why it "invaded" what normally would be Windoze space.

When you do install again, use the "Expert" install mode of Mandrake and make sure it lets you setup Linux native filesystems in your selection of partitions. Mandrake's installer is very sane -- that is, it tells what's coming up, where it's been, and what it's doing right now. Even in "Expert" mode it will give you reasonable defaults and allow you to control those special conditions that you know about with respect to your system.

[Force Flow]

Okay, I'm in the process of installing it on my test system.

Now, when it comes to the disk format part, which format should I use? Here's the list I get:
Linux Native
Linux Swap
Journalised FS: ext3
Journalised FS: ReiserFS
Journalised FS: JFS
Journalised FS: XFS
FAT16 (won't install)
FAT32 (won't install)

Which would be the best to use so that I would be able to see the partition from windows? (the linux installation partitioner won't let me do FAT16 or FAT32).

A prog called "ext2fsread" will let me view the linux files and export them into windows, but not save anything from windows to linux. Is there a way to do that?

[Force Flow]

Also, what is the "swap" partition that linux wants to create. It makes it sound like it's optional. What is it for and is it necessary?

[Evil-Lab-Monkey]

You want to install Linux on it's own seperate partition so select Linux Native. The swap partition is just a seperate partition for the swap file, it improves performance. It isn't necessary to have it on it's own partition but it's reccomended.

[Force Flow]

How much space is reccomended for the swap partition?

[Force Flow]

Okay, I just installed it. I gave Mandrake about 11GB and the swap about 900MB.

Thanks for all your help guys!

[jglen490]

Just outta curiosity, did you format your non-swap partion as "Linux native" or did you select one of the journalized filesystems? The journalized ones tend to be a little more stable and are definitely more recoverable in case the cat kicks out the power plug.

Just for the sake of a learning point, your swap is way past large! That's not intended as a dig, and it's certainly not a problem, especially with as much hard disk turf as you have, but as a rule of thumb, you need about twice as much swap as you have physical memory (swap being virtual memory) but generally no more than 250MB - 300MB. Use more if you have a very large number of very heavy memory-dependent programs open at once such as CAD or photo editing and the like. One of Linux's very strong points is its excellent memory management.

I really hope you dive deep into Linux, the water really is fine !!

[Force Flow]

Originally posted by jglen490 Just outta curiosity, did you format your non-swap partion as "Linux native" or did you select one of the journalized filesystems? The journalized ones tend to be a little more stable and are definitely more recoverable in case the cat kicks out the power plug.

I formated the linux partitons as "linux native".

Now the search begins for progs that will run on linux...

[jglen490]

Good luck on your search!!

There's a lot on your Mandrake CDs.
Try sourceforge.net
Try freshmeat.net
Try www.openoffice.org
Try www.xmms.org
Try www.google.com/linux

There are tons of others, too. Happy hunting !

[aym]

http://gaim.sourceforge.net/ for a Yahoo/MSN/ICQ messengers alternative.